Even though Quinlan was so tense he imagined that if someone hit him he would just shatter into myriad pieces, Sally was now leaning limp against him, her breathing low, calmer. He’d been right. Talking about it out loud had eased her, but not him, good Lord, not him.
Could she have imagined it all? For the longest time he couldn’t speak. Finally he said, “Was it your husband who did this to you, Sally?”
She was asleep, her breath even and slow against his chest. He realized then that he was wearing only shorts. Who the hell cared? He pushed her back and tried to pull away from her. To his pleasure and consternation, she clutched her arms around his back. “No, please, no,” she said. She sounded asleep.
He eased down beside her, lying on his back, pressing her face against his shoulder. He hadn’t planned on this, he thought, staring up at the dark ceiling. She was breathing deeply, her leg across his belly now, her palm flat on his chest. Any lower with that hand or any lower with her thigh and he would be in big trouble.
He was already in big trouble. He kissed her forehead, squeezed her more closely against him, and closed his eyes. At least the bastard hadn’t raped her. But he’d beat her.
Surprisingly, he fell asleep.
11
“YEAH, RIGHT,” QUINLAN said to himself as he got to his feet. There were two nice male footprints below Sally’s bedroom window at Amabel’s house and, more important, deep impressions where the feet of the ladder had dug into the earth.
There were small torn branches on the ground, ripped away by someone who had moved quickly, dragging that damned long ladder with him. He dropped to his haunches again and measured the footprints with his right hand. Size eleven shoe, just about his own size. He took off his loafer and set it gently into the indentation. Nearly a perfect fit. All right, then, an eleven and a half.
The heels were pretty deep, which meant he wasn’t a small man, perhaps about six feet and one hundred eighty pounds or so. Close enough. He looked more carefully, measuring the depth of the indentations with his fingers. One went deeper than the other, which was odd. A limp? He didn’t know. Maybe it was just an aberration.
“What have you got, Quinlan?” It was David Mountebank. He was in his uniform, looking pressed and well shaved, and surprisingly well rested. It was only six-thirty in the morning. “You thinking about eloping with Sally Brandon?”
Well, hell, Quinlan thought, rising slowly, as he said in an easy voice, “Actually someone tried to get into the house last night and really scared Sally. And yes, if you’re interested, she should still be sleeping in Thelma’s tower room, my room.”
“Someone tried to break in?”
“Yeah, that’s about it. Sally woke up and saw the man’s face in the window. It scared the bejesus out of her. When she screamed, it must have scared the bejesus out of the guy as well, because he was out of here.”
David Mountebank leaned against the side of Amabel’s cottage. It looked like it had been freshly painted not six months ago. The dark-green trim around the windows was very crisp. “What the hell’s really going on, Quinlan?”
He sighed. “I can’t tell you. Call it national security, David.”
“I’d like to call that bullshit.”
“I can’t tell you,” Quinlan repeated. He met David’s eye. He never flinched. David could have drawn a gun on him and he wouldn’t have flinched.
“All right,” David said finally. “Have it your way, at least for now. You promise me it doesn’t have anything to do with the two murders?”
“It doesn’t. The more I mull it over, the more I think the woman’s murder is somehow connected to Harve and Marge Jensen’s disappearance three years ago, even though just yesterday I told you I couldn’t imagine it. I don’t know how or why, but you’ve got things that don’t smell right. Well, I have things that just twist and turn in my gut. That’s my intuition. I’ve learned over the years never to ignore it. Things are somehow connected. I just have no idea how or why or if I’m just plain not thinking straight.